Arnold Schwarzenegger was right. In March, no one thought that Governor Gavin Newsom had to worry about the Republican-led recall campaign against him. Back then, Newsom called the recall a “distraction,” waving it off as a pandemic hobby for anti-vaxxers and Trump goons. But Schwarzenegger, who was elected governor after the recall of Democrat Gray Davis in 2003, told Politico’s Carla Marinucci that, actually, Newsom had reason for concern. It doesn’t matter that Democrats outnumbered Republicans in California by a 2:1 margin, Schwarzenegger said, or that the state’s once-healthy Republican Party had shriveled into a reactionary collection of racist surfer dads in Orange County and MAGA Facebook moms in Modesto. What mattered, he argued, was the perception that Californians are working hard, with many falling behind because of the coronavirus pandemic, while the government in Sacramento fiddled. “That’s what I see as the similarities from 2003,” Schwarzenegger concluded. “It’s the same vibe.”
The vibes: People in California like to talk about them, especially where I live, in Venice, on the westside of Los Angeles. Usually the vibes are good. Heading into the final few weeks of the Sept. 14 recall election, however, the vibes are decidedly bad. Crime, wildfires, and the scourge of the Delta variant are top of mind. Homelessness is out of control, making homeowners and renters alike think twice about supporting Newsom, even if they cast ballots to elect Joe Biden in 2020. Some of these afflictions are unique to California, but their clumsy handling by Democrats here should be an ominous warning sign for a party whose messaging on crime has been muddled between law-and-order candidates like former cop Eric Adams in New York City, and outspoken defund-the-police progressives, like Cori Bush in Missouri. Whether or not the Newsom recall succeeds, Republicans have exposed a clear vulnerability for Democrats heading into next year’s midterms: claiming that California’s supposed societal breakdown is the inevitable byproduct of lefty decadence, the failure of elite liberal governance—and the future of Biden’s America.
